Although tradition states that the maid of honor should take the lead on arranging the bridal shower, some brides still insist on pitching in. There is nothing wrong with the bride offering her help because in most instances the entire task ends up becoming a group project anyway! In fact, planning a bridal shower with a joint effort from the maid of honor, bridesmaids and the bride herself always proves to be much less stressful for everyone. Here is a great guide on arranging a bridal shower, no matter what role you play on the wedding planning team!
- Start Your Wedding Shower Planning in Advance
- Deciding Who Will Attend
- Choosing a Theme
Give yourself at least three months to properly plan and coordinate your wedding shower. Consider the fact that you need to create a guest list, select a wedding shower theme and to select a few wedding shower games and activities. Also factor in some time for purchasing or creating the wedding shower invitations. You’re first biggest concern should be organization because there is nothing worse than a last minute bridal shower. A great method to stay organized is to have a set list of responsibilities aligned each person helping out. Map each of the responsibilities to an overall time line of duties, to give you and your helpers a solid due date for each task.
The biggest decision that needs to be made is whether or not the shower will be only woman or coed. Traditionally wedding showers were meant as a celebration for only woman, but these days couples have opened the invitation to both men and children. Once the choice has been made, someone close to the bride and her guest list should start choosing who will attend.
Choosing your wedding shower theme is the next biggest step in planning the bridal shower. Essentially no decision can be made about wedding favors, decorations, activities, etc. until a theme has been chosen. There are several traditional and contemporary wedding shower themes to choose from. Although not necessary, most brides tend to incorporate their wedding theme into their bridal shower. This can be a great cost saving tip, if you plan on using the same decorations for both events. Other brides decide to be more innovative and make up their own motifs. Here are a few unique wedding shower ideas and suggestions to complement each theme.
- Wine Theme – For brides that love red wine, use dark reds and purples as your wedding color scheme. If your preference is white wine, focus on a pastel yellow, gold, or champagne color theme. You and your guests can have several wines and imported cheeses to snack on. Supply your guest with wine glass and create an activity that involves decorating their own glass. Using grapes and fruit baskets can be a beautiful and an inexpensive decorating idea.
- Movie Theme – Brides that love the Hollywood spotlight should have a movie themed bridal shower. The entrance can be decorated with a red carpet and movie backdrop for each guest to take pictures. Food can include popcorn, candy and hot pretzels. Give each of your guests a disposable camera to use and then collect them at the end of the night. This will give your guests something to do the entire night and provide you with great memorabilia of your shower.
- Lingerie Theme – Depending on who is attending you can have an edgier lingerie themed shower. Champagne and strawberries would fit well as food for your guests and you can give them each a feather boa as a favor for the night!
- Deciding on Entertainment
Once you have made a theme choice for your bridal shower, you will want to think about what kind of entertainment you will have at the shower. If you decide on playing a game, make it more interesting by offering small prizes for winning guests. Some popular traditional shower games include Trivia, Bingo and Charades. A great activity that everyone at the party can participate in is a raffle. Place small cards, tags, or ribbons beneath each chair at the bridal shower and whichever guest selects the seat with the winning token gets to take home a prize. For grand prizes you can offer your bridal shower flowers or centerpieces!
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